


Elements of Inspiration

by Triskaidekalogue



Category: Crypt of the NecroDancer
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, post-DLC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23208526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triskaidekalogue/pseuds/Triskaidekalogue
Summary: Every work is in dialogue with its peers and predecessors, after all, and ideas are nothing without execution. Of course, a canny creative always has ways of speeding things along.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2020





	Elements of Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ysavvryl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysavvryl/gifts).



_My_ master used to say all you needed to be a wizard was a bit of magic and a lot of memorization. Shows how much he knew! Barely a step above the town beggar, he was. Ole Patches they called him -- his given name was Patrick but I never heard anyone use it. Hells, _he_ hardly used it. Hadn't a whit of self-respect, that man.

Now, some might think I could stand to speak of the old man's humble station with a bit more respect myself, seeing as it is the only reason a brat but one generation from serfdom could get a hold of any kind of wizardly apprenticeship at all, but he didn't just have no ambition, he had no patience for anyone else's. Mayor, beggar, merchant, serf -- _anyone_ else in town could at least understand a bright young thing wanting to rise up in the world! But no, Ole Patches must always be at the ready with a chummy wink or salt-of-the-earth saying to shut down any talk of building up reputation, probing arcane secrets, mastering greater power...

Well, good riddance, I say. It isn't as if he'd got anything more to teach -- scraped the bottom of that barrel long ago. I should have packed my bag and come out here the instant he answered my question about harnessing elemental spirits by telling some fool story about the dance of the seasons!

But never mind that. The citadel, as I was saying before. Yes, there really is no better proof of prowess than the construction of a truly sorcerous Wizard's Citadel! I have my sights on Mount Aerie, or perhaps Mount Celeste, or Mount Pinnacle... something in the Northern Range, at any rate, whichever peak I can claim at the height of my power. But for now I am still refining my mastery over the elemental spirits, so I'm content to test myself here on a smaller scale.

Hm? No, not as small as that. I found an overlooked little patch of fallow land out by -- er, some ways out from here. But nobody thinks to look _under_ the land, see? Caverns, that's the trick of it, build _down_ instead of _up_ and no landlords or town councillors or angry farmers come a-knocking. Anyway, it's nowhere as vast or grand as my citadel will be, of course, but it's a goodly amount of space for my experiments in the arcane arts. Matter of fact, I mightn't even be the first such one to light on the idea. The place is a touch too regular to be natural, and there's a sort of aura about it... a sort of magical charge, almost. All the better to spark inspiration, I say.

You must understand, a wizard must have their secrets! I _cannot_ simply go about crying the location of my magical laboratory for all to find. Where would be the mystery in that? Not to mention the potential of landlords and town councillors and angry farmers... and, as I said, I'm no master of the elemental spirits yet. I admit it freely! The blame lies firmly at my own master's lazy thrice-cursed feet, after all, and I have been making progress on my own. Why, I reckon I will have got basic control over spirits of all four types before the year's out -- I am pretty sure of my hold over earth spirits already, and I can at least summon fire and water, and bind them to a rough locus to boot. Not bad for a self-made journeyman, that's for sure, but it is not worthy of a wizard's citadel. Might as well eat a half-cooked chicken, or play music on a piece of firewood strung with raw gut.

Of course there is! Sure and it might be I think of some other design as I become more adept in sorcery, there's no helping that, but I have most of a plan of how I'd like to build it.

Right, so, it'd be five layers, like a five-walled keep, see? Earth, fire, water, air, one for each element. The outermost layer --

I was going to _get_ to that. The fifth is the innermost layer, where I shall live. Represents pure magic. All right?

Thank you. Where was I? The outermost layer. Earth. I'd have it stuffed so full of earth spirits it would look like a solid mass of mud and rock and green growing things. Absolutely immovable. I'd only have them part way for me or for a guest who was there by my invitation. Any intruders, any unwanted visitors -- they could spend their whole lives hacking away at my earth-spirit guardians and never make so much as a dent.

The thing is, there is only so much awe you can inspire with mud and rock and plants, and anyway a clever wizard ought not rely all on one thing. So I'd have the second layer be a great deep moat, like a king's castle, but four or five times the size. (Or so I imagine. I haven't seen a king's castle. Have you? Well, very great and deep, at any rate.) And the water would be rushing about in a great dizzy torrent, because it would really all be water spirits -- and in the depths of the moat there would be jagged spikes of ice! When I wish to cross that layer, or have someone cross, the ice would rise up and become a grand glittering bridge, smooth and good to walk on, but otherwise anyone who dares set foot there will be drowned in the current, if they are not dashed on the ice spikes first!

And I am sure you have heard (or told) tales of wizards with their pits of fire. I reckon if any rival should make it past the earth and the ice, I can give them a good shock with a _rain_ of fire. I shall have the fire spirits ceaselessly fly up and shower down and take the forms of all manner of ghastly grimacing creatures as they land, goblins and hellhounds and nightmare beasts. At my approach I shall have them all land and clear my path and bow to me. I'd like to see the hoity-toity scoffers sneer at _that_.

Air, now, I have been thinking on it. At first I thought of some kind of everlasting storm, but that's too like the fire layer... and besides, a storm is half water, isn't it? And lately I have been dreaming of a vast yawning chasm buffeted by piercing winds, over which the spirits will carry visitors gently at my command. Perhaps that might be more distinctive?

It's kind of you to say so, I'm sure. No, I tell you what I'm sure of: I'm sure I will have better ideas once I have got more control over the spirits of the air.

It's _very_ kind of you to say so... but you have not even seen my troubles with fire and water. I summon one without the other and the spirits go roaring out of control, I summon them together and they're halfway to destroying each other before I can say "boo". Finicky devils. I've only had any luck so far by summoning them to adjacent loci, and making certain that the water spirits are in ice form so they can stand up to the fire. Now I ask you, how am I supposed to get a vast rushing moat or ceaseless rain of fire out of that?

All right, yes, and your half-finished songs weren't half-bad either, aha, forgive the joke... but I hardly think that's comparable to _arcane mysteries_.

Oh, don't look at me like that.

Oh, fine, yes, they do sometimes. Yes, I've heard of them. Yes, I know, all right, bardic magic is impressive too, I'm _sorry_. Look, I've enjoyed talking with you, I respect your ambition as a fellow... a fellow artisan of the arcane. I didn't mean it like that, all right? Nobody else in this town seems to have any intelligent conversation, please don't go off and le-- 

Fine! I will! Play me the one you're working on and I'll take you there after! Just swear you won't tell anyone else. Deal?

Good.

Of _course_ I trust you.


End file.
